90TH CONGRESS 2d Session } HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES { REPORT No. 1871 AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASE, SALE, EXCHANGE, MORTGAGE, AND LONG-TERM LEASING OF LAND BY THE SWINOMISH INDIAN TRIBAL COMMUNITY, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES SEPTEMBER 10, 1968.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed Mr. HALEY, from the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany H.R. 16012] The Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 16012) to authorize the purchase, sale, exchange, mortgage, and long-term leasing of land by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, and for other purposes having considered the same, report favorably thereon with amendments and recommend that the bill do pass. AMENDMENTS The amendments are as follows: Page 1, line 3, through page 2, line 3, strike out all of section 1 and insert: That the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to purchase with funds made available by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community any land or interest in land within, adjacent to, or in close proximity to the boundaries of the Swinomish Indian Reservation. Page 2, line 5, after "by" insert "or in trust for". Page 2, lines 7 to 9, strike out "by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. Any land or interest therein acquired by exchange must be". Page 2, after line 12, insert a new section 3 as follows: SEC. 3. Title to any land acquired pursuant to this Act shall be taken in the name of the United States in trust for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and shall be nontaxable Page 2, line 13, strike out "SEC. 3." and insert "SEC. 4.". Page 2, lines 17 and 18, strike out "community, without regard to limitations or restrictions in any other statute." and insert "community." Page 2, line 22, after "proceeding" insert "involving trust land.” PURPOSE The purpose of H.R. 16012, introduced by Mr. Meeds, is to provide broader authority for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community to acquire, sell, lease, exchange, and mortgage land. NEED Under present law the community may acquire land, but the title may not be taken in trust if the property would be taken off the tax rolls. This means in practice that a trust title may be taken only if the title is now held in trust for an individual Indian. There is no authority for the commuity to sell or mortgage its land, and the authority to lease community land is limited to relatively short periods. The community owns 15 miles of tidelands and 263 acres of uplands which together have a value of about $1 million. On one portion of the reservation it wishes to develop an industrial site, including dock facilities. For that purpose it needs to acquire some key tracts, part of which are owned by Indians and part of which are owned by nonIndians. The community does not have adequate funds to make the purchases, and plans to obtain funds by selling or mortgaging some of its present land. The community also wishes to lease on a long-term basis about onehalf mile of its tidelands to the owner of the abutting uplands. The latter wishes to develop his uplands for residential purposes. Lease negotiations have come to a halt because the upland owner feels that it would not be feasible to develop the property unless he can purchase from the community a long, narrow sandspit located in front of his upland. The sandspit varies in width from 40 to 100 feet above mean high tide. The upland owner has offered the community $10,000 for the sandspit and the community has agreed to sell if the necessary legislation is enacted. The sale will permit the lease negotiations to be completed. The sale and the leases will contribute substantially to the economic stability of the Indians. Enactment of the bill will give the community purchase, sale, and exchange authority comparable to that given to the Yakimas (Public Law 88-540), Colville (Public Law 84-772), Standing Rock (Public Law 85-915), Crow Creek (Public Law 85-916), Lower Brule (Public Law 85-923), and Spokane (Public Law 90-335). It will give the Community the same long-term lease authority that has been given to 12 other tribes. COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS The amendments made by the committee permit a trust title to be taken to any land acquired within the reservation, and require an unrestricted fee title to be taken to any land acquired outside the boundaries of the reservation. This conforms to the language used in the statutes cited above when purchases outside the reservations were involved. The committee also deleted language that was intended to override. language carried in the annual appropriation acts for the department of the Interior, and the need for modifying the appropriation language has been called to the attention of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, as explained in the next paragraph. APPROPRIATION ACT AMENDMENT NEEDED The annual appropriation acts for the Department of the Interior for the past several years have carried the following provision under the heading "Tribal Funds:" No part of this appropriation for other tribal funds shall be used for the acquisition of land or water rights within the States of Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, either inside or outside the boundaries of existing Indian Reservations, if such acquisition results in the property being exempted from local taxation, except as provided for by the Act of July 24, 1956 (70 Stat. 927), and by H.R. 3299, Ninetieth Congress. The statutes cited in this quotation are the Colville statute (Public Law 84-772) and the Spokane statute (90-335) referred to above. In order that the authority granted by enactment of H.R. 16012 will not be nullified by the next annual appropriation act for the Department, the quoted language needs to be changed by adding at the end thereof a reference to this bill as enacted. COST Enactment of the bill will involve no Federal cost. COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS The Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs recommends that the bill, as amended, be enacted. |